


What A Life I Might Have Known

by Caitlinlaurie



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Gen, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 16:09:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1716653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caitlinlaurie/pseuds/Caitlinlaurie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five worlds that Jon Snow could have lived in and the one that he wanted to live in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What A Life I Might Have Known

 

_i. Jon Targaryen of the Night’s Watch_

The horses had returned at dawn, but they were rider-less save one. It seemed as though every voice on the Wall whispered the same word as one: _deserter_. Of Ser Waymar’s ranging, two were missing and Gared, a hardened and dedicated ranger, had returned with the horses only to keep riding out through Castle Black and down the kingsroad. He was last seen the night before passing Mole’s Town.

Jon had woken early, as was his habit, taking care of all that he needed to do for Lord Dayne in the Lord Commander’s Tower before heading to the Rookery. He had been the steward and squire for Lord Dayne for five years now, but Jon’s only regret for his situation was that having to be on hand meant that he was far from his uncle, who he didn’t even get to see some days, outside of supper. Oh, not his Uncle Benjen—Jon didn’t mean him, for Benjen Stark was First Ranger and forever coming and going from Castle Black; so much so, that Jon was used to it by now. No, Jon meant his other uncle entirely.

“Hey! Where are you running to, lad?”

As Jon jogged along, he looked down over the wooden railing into the training yard where Lord Commander Ser Arthur Dayne was training with Ser Oswell Whent. They had stopped, and were looking upwards at Jon. The Lord Commander had his hands cupped around his mouth, and it was obvious that he was the one who had shouted. The two knights always made it a habit to spar early, before the rest of Castle Black was awake, and Ser Oswell had to begin his duties drilling the newest Black brothers, while Lord Dayne had to get to the business of running the Night’s Watch. Jon knew that if they didn’t spar early in the morning, they would never have a chance otherwise. Lord Dayne was busy with the managing of the seven different castles manned along the Wall, and Ser Oswell had to deal with the steady stream of new recruits; from Targaryen loyalists to young knights searching for glory—men from all over the land were eager to devote themselves to the Night’s Watch.

When Jon had been a child, he used to sneak down and hide behind one of the barrels and watch them fight. Eventually, Jon had been caught by Ser Gerold Hightower, who was commander of the Shadow Tower. The old knight had been visiting Castle Black for the choosing, and he had come down to speak to the new Lord Commander before he had to return to his post. It was he who had seen Jon, pointing the sneaky, young dragon out to his sworn brothers. All three former members of the Kingsguard had laughed, and told the young boy that there was no need to hide. After that, Jon had spent many a morning watching the greatest knights in the realm battle it out at the base of the Wall.

Jon waved to the knights. “I am going to see mine uncle,” he shouted back, continuing to run along. He knew that they gave him far more leeway that they did other members of the Black brothers, and while normally Jon wouldn’t take advantage of this, today was special. He had no time to stop and give the Lord Commander the status of his breakfast. Lord Dayne would be able to see well enough for himself that it was laid out in his solar.

“Just don’t slip, young Jon,” Ser Oswell called, his voice teasing. “I thought dragons were supposed to be graceful?”

Making a rude hand gesture which caused Ser Oswell to roar with laughter, Jon turned from the overhang and began running up the flight of stairs into the Rookery. As he did, Jon breathed deep, savoring the fresh air. Later, he would have to spend hours amidst the stale air in the Vaults, looking for old plans for Greyguard. Lord Dayne wanted to re-man that castle, but it would have to be rebuilt first. Of the castles along the Wall, at the moment only Castle Black, Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, Westwatch-by-the-Bridge, The Shadow Tower, Hoarfrost Hill, Queensgate, and Rimegate had Black Brothers at them. The rest were empty, and the brothers called them ghost castles.

At the time of Jon’s birth, only three of the castles had been manned. But once the three faithful Targaryen Kingsguard had taken the black, along with Benjen Stark and countless other Northmen and loyalists who had joined Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark’s young infant son in his exile, Lord Qorgyle had needed to reopen an old castle. Once he had died and Ser Arthur Dayne had been elected the new Lord Commander, soon other castles had followed as the men who were coming to the Wall had never decreased, only grown.

Skidding to a stop just outside the rookery, Jon slowed his steps, and yet was still breathless when he stepped into his uncle’s domain. Maester Aemon was carefully tying rolled messages to the legs of the various ravens in the room. “Are those them?” Jon asked breathlessly. “The messages naming Gared a deserter?”

His uncle turned, frowning slightly. “They are messages which mean death for one of our brothers, Jon. This is nothing to be excited over.”

Jon sighed, pushing a lock of silver-gold hair from his eyes. “I _know_ that,” he said, drawing out his words. “But there hasn’t been a deserter in years! I don’t even remember the last one.”

“You were three,” Aemon told him in a wispy voice. “His name was Dagon, and your uncle in Winterfell sent back his head in a brown sack.”

Jon started at the mention of his mother’s birth home and her older brother. He had met Lord Eddard Stark many times. The man was often coming up to the Wall to provide supplies to the Watch and to see Jon and Benjen. He and Lord Dayne were currently in talks about resettling the Gift. On his last trip, Lord Stark had brought his younger son Bran, as well as Robb who often came. Bran had said that when he was old enough, he was going to join Jon on the Wall. His Uncle Ned had looked incredibly proud, though Jon had wondered why on earth Bran would want to come to the Wall when he lived in the world, instead of at the edge.

“Still, it’s strange, isn’t it?” Jon said to his uncle. “There hasn’t been a deserter in ages and ages, and now there is one, and Ser Waymar and Will are missing. Nothing ever happens at the Wall, and now so much is happening at once.”

Aemon shook his head. He was faced towards Jon, but his white, colorless eyes saw nothing. The maester had gone blind when Jon was a baby. His uncle had said that once his eyes had been as purple as Jon’s, but those days were long gone. He had also said that the gods had saved his eyes as long as they had so that Aemon might hold Jon in his arms and see the last son that would ever be born to his house, which was both a gift and a curse. Growing up, Jon had always known that he was a sorrow to people who had known and loved his father. Rhaegar Targaryen had been a great man, Jon knew, but it still made people who had loved him sad to look upon Jon and see his exact copy. Everyone who had ever seen Jon had said he looked just like Rhaegar. He made Ser Jon Connington, commander of Westwatch-by-the-Bridge, especially sad.

“Oh, the impetuousness of youth,” Aemon said, shaking his head. “Once you are older, and Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch in your own right, you will learn that peace is a blessing and excitement a curse. Learn to be cautious, young dragon. Winter is coming.”

Jon rolled his eyes. His uncle was a great man, but he was so _old_. The princeling was completely convinced that his nuncle had forgotten entirely what it was to be young.

“Now,” Aemon said, “Since you are up so early, you can be the one to help me ready the ravens for their exodus.”

Grumbling, Jon did as he was bid. He might have been born the true king of all Seven Kingdoms, but in his uncle’s rookery, it was Maester Aemon who ruled.

           

 

_ii. Daemon Waters, Prince of Dorne  
_

Arianne was spread out on the bed, posed seductively, and bearing her breasts to his eyes. “Well my lord, how like you this?”

Daemon stepped into the bedchamber and swallowed. As the front of his trousers grew tight, it felt as though the placket of laces there were fit to burst. _This is ridiculous_ , he thought, _I am the blood of the dragon and I will not be undone by this child-woman with more ambition than wisdom_.

His reaction was an odd one, Daemon knew. He had grown up with the most beautiful woman in the world, and they had been playing at kissing games since they were children. The moment they were old enough to understand the pleasure that their bodies could give each other, Daenerys had slipped beneath his sheets and they had hardly slept apart until she married her Dothraki horse lord. After that, Daemon had been given one of his uncle’s Lyseni pleasure slaves, and then he had understood the act of love in its completion.

Doreah had been the first girl he stuck his cock in, but she had not been the last. The slave girl had died in the Red Waste, but once they got to Qarth, Viserys and Daemon had wasted no time in glutting themselves in the pillow houses. Viserys had been filled with joy at the birth of the dragons and the great future that had awaited House Targaryen once more, but Daemon had only wanted to forget. There was little that could compare to the moment that Dany had placed the cream dragon in his lap and told him it was his, but this was followed by the certain knowledge that all three of them were going home to Westeros, and that because of this, Dany would never be more to Daemon than a beloved aunt.

So he had lost himself in Maggei, in Sersa, in Jadewyn, in Lysama. Even more had followed after Astapor, and Yunkai, and Meereen. Once they had sacked the cities, there were plenty of women willing to sell their bodies to Daemon in return for a warm meal. He supposed he should have felt guilty about the whole thing, but as Viserys was fond of saying, they were _dragons_. Dragons consumed; it was what they did.

There was no escaping it—it was as certain as sunrise.

Daemon had bedded even more women once they returned to Westeros—after the business of setting fire to the Westerlands and the Stormlands had been taken care of, of course. Viserys had been even worse, as plenty of women were eager to bed the comely king. Queen Daenerys had turned her nose up at her husband once the pair of them were installed in the Red Keep. _From the Beggar King to the Whoremonger King_ , she whispered to Daemon.

Dany made a beautiful queen, but Daemon had been almost relieved when he had been ordered to Dorne by Viserys to marry Arianne Martell to keep a betrothal agreement that none of them had known anything about. Dany had wept, of course, clutching at her pregnant stomach, but Daemon had refused to let his emotions show on his face. Ser Barristan would take care of her, Daemon knew. He had simply climbed atop Icefyre, and taken off into the sky, passing Drogon and Valonqar who were flying above the city. The small council and his men would follow later, and were only two weeks behind him.

Upon his arrival in Dorne, Daemon had been shocked at the sight of his bride. He had always believed Dany to be the epitome of female beauty, so it had been a surprise and a pleasure to discover that he was so entranced by Arianne. As for his bride, she had seemed no less happy than he.

“I had always heard Dragonlords were comely,” she had said that first day, smiling coyly, “but you, my lord, are entirely a surprise.” Her fingers had traced through his brown hair, and at that moment, Daemon had been entirely hers.

Now, moons later, finally having been wedded and bedded, Daemon was still surprised by the amount of desire he felt for his bride as he was ready to have her for the first time. He would have taken her before, but Doran Martell had sent Daemon all over Dorne to meet all his bannermen, having them host and feast him. Daemon had only returned to Sunspear for the wedding, and now that it was finally done and the moment upon them, Princess Arianne seemed no less eager than he. She was no maid, that was for certain, but curiously, Daemon couldn’t seem to bring himself to mind it. Her body was shapely, and the way she moved it spoke to years of experience in pleasure and lust. The thought of it only made him harden further.

Daemon stripped his leggings, the last thing left to him after the raucous bedding, allowing his manhood to spring up proud and tall. Arianne licked her lips, her eyes alight and gleaming. He grinned a feral smile, stalking forward towards his prey. All that she had left to her were the tatters of smallclothes that hung on her hips. “Strip,” he ordered.

Arianne smiled that coy smile again. She stood, turning from him and easing her smallclothes down her legs. Then, she tossed her hair and looked back at him over her shoulder. “Well, my lord husband?”

He pulled her to him, flush against his body so that her lush curves could touch at the hard planes of his chest. Years of training with first Ser Jorah, then the Dothraki, and then Ser Barristan, had left Daemon with a body riddled with muscles and scars. His hands had callouses, both from the sword and also from the reins of his dragon. Arianne did not seem to mind though as he stroked a hand down her flank. She shuddered, letting her head loll back onto his shoulder. A soft sigh escaped her lips, especially as Daemon paid special attention to her large, brown nipples.

In no time at all, Daemon had her laid back upon the bed, and was seated within her, stroking her body and sucking at her breasts, and rubbing between her legs. She clenched around him again and again, until she finally sobbed, coming once more, and batting his hand away. It was only then that Daemon took his pleasure. Afterwards, they lay together on the bed, a sweaty mess as neither of them could move. Arianne was tucked up under his chin, stroking her fingers over the planes of his chest.

“I feared this, you know,” she murmured after a time. “Before you came to Dorne.”

“Why?” Daemon asked, his voice a slow rumble. “It is not as though you were a maid who knew not what to expect on her wedding night.”

Arianne propped herself up on her hand, looking at him with amusement. “You really don’t know what is said about you, do you?”

Daemon shrugged. “I don’t really care, though I suppose if it was enough to upset you, you had better tell me.”

“They say that you are the most dangerous man in the world,” Arianne told him, pillowing her head below his heart, her black ringlets falling forward across his chest and abdomen. “They say that you stole the sword Blackfyre from the Golden Company, slaying Ser Myles Toyne in single combat. They say that you found the last Blackfyre pretender and fed him to your dragon.”

Daemon raised one eyebrow, rather amused at Arianne’s breathless tone. “What else do _they_ say?”

“They say that the Dothraki were so loyal to you that you could have had your own khalasar if you had wanted it, and that you killed a great, white lion, and so Khal Drogo named you kindred.” Arianne’s eyes were bright, and she was getting into the story now. “They say that you were the one who led the sackings of Astapor, of Yunkai, and of Meereen. They say that your dragon is the biggest, and that it was you who planned and executed the Second Landing, the Desolation of Casterly Rock, and the End of All Storms. They say that King Viserys named you his Hand not because you are his servant, but because he is yours.” She said the last bit at a rush, as if she was afraid she had upset him.

Grinning, Daemon rolled Arianne over, caging her beneath him. “All true, I’m afraid, except for the last. I am a true and loyal servant to my king.” His grin was such though that when he said the words Arianne’s eyes widened and then gleamed with pleasure.

“You are a fitting consort for me,” she said, reaching upwards and twining her fingers through his hair. “You will make a great prince of Dorne. It is good that you are a bastard as well, for I love bastards.”

“Sweet Princess, I was born in Dorne,” Daemon told her. “The moment my mother died in her bed of blood, I was whisked off to Dragonstone before I had even taken suck to a breast. Still, I do believe that I was always meant to return here, to this land, and to rule it.”

His wife’s eyes narrowed. “ _I_ will rule Dorne. You will not steal my birthright, husband.”

Daemon laughed, kissing his way down his wife’s body. He paused at the meeting of her legs, looking up with a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Most beloved wife, I share in all things. I shall share my dragon with you, and you shall share Dorne with me.”

Arianne looked curious. “What else shall you share?”

He smiled, lowering his mouth to her cunt. “Let me show you.”

 

 

_iii. Jon Stone, Knight of the Vale_

It was a long journey up from the ground, taking almost the full day. The wind had battered at them all the way to the waycastle Stone, lending a doomed feeling to their journey. It was as if all the Arryns who had ruled and died before Lord Jon were howling in their ears, screaming of the futility of their mission. Little Lord Robert had been the Lord of the Eyrie and the Warden of the East for a full two years, and yet no one was at all pleased by this.

“The boy has little Arryn in him,” his Uncle Yohn had said once when Jon had asked why. “His mother has been a sickness upon his mind, and he already had a sickness of the body to contend with.”

Jon was rather morbidly looking forward to meeting the little eight year old lord. They shared some rather distant blood through House Royce, but Jon had never met the child before. Up until two years before, Robert Arryn and his mother Lysa had lived in King’s Landing. It was only after the death of Lord Jon that they had returned to the Vale. At that time, Jon Stone had still been squiring for Ser Symond Templeton, and had been unable to go to Lady Arryn’s court at the Eyrie. Now, he was a knight in his own right, and finally making his ascent up the Giant’s Lance.

At Snow, his uncle paced restlessly in front of the little timber keep, while Jon took the opportunity to look out at the view below and to the east. The Vale of Arryn was the most beautiful place in all the world, Jon thought. The blue snow-capped mountains sheltered a land of peace and plenty. Slow, lazy rivers crossed the valley floor, and a hundred shinning lakes dotted the landscape as far as the eye could see. The black soil grew their food, and the rich grass fed their horses. A valeman knew where he stood when he was in the land of his birth. It was the home of honor and duty, of soaring words and unbroken vows. Jon had travelled with his Uncle Yohn to King’s Landing and the Riverlands, and he had gone with Ser Symond to tourneys in the Reach, the Stormlands, and the Westerlands. None of it, just none of the rest of the vast, wide world could compare to the Vale of Arryn. Jon had been born in the shelter of this land, and he supposed that this was where the gods intended him to die.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Jon turned, looking over to see Ser Symond standing beside him. The Knight of Ninestars had a beak nose and icy blue eyes that had always reminded Jon of the peregrine falcon, Hunter, that he had been given by his cousin Ser Waymar just before the older boy had left for the Night’s Watch.

Jon had intended to follow his cousin to the Night’s Watch after he had his spurs, but Uncle Yohn had forbidden it once word had come to Runestone of his third son Waymar’s death on a ranging. Bronze Yohn had become even more determined to keep Jon in the Vale once his second son Robar had died at the hands of Ser Loras Tyrell. Jon was now a knight of Runestone, and his uncle did not seem inclined to allow Jon to leave his sight. As a result, Jon had almost welcomed the upheaval in the Vale, and the intrigue of the Lords Declarant, the mustering of their men, and the siege of the Eyrie. Oh, it was not a proper siege, Jon knew, not yet at least, but it was the beginnings of one.

He looked over to Ser Symond, smiling at the man. “The most beautiful sight in all the world.”

Jon was very fond of Ser Symond. The older knight was everything Jon wanted to be, and the six years that he had been Ser Symond’s squire at Ninestars were counted among the best of his life. When Jon had finally won his spurs after a brush with the mountain clans three moons before, wherein he had slain the leader of the Burned Men, Jon had never been prouder than the moment when Ser Symond placed his sword upon Jon’s shoulder, and charged him, in the name of the Seven, to uphold the vows and oaths of knighthood. The bastard boy had knelt, but the knight rose, and he had returned home to Runestone as Ser Jon Stone.

“Look out over that vista, lad,” Ser Symond said, clasping Jon’s shoulder. “That is what we are trying to protect.”

“And we will,” Jon vowed. “I swear it.”

“Keep your temper, listen, and learn,” the Knight of Ninestars cautioned him. “There is much to be discovered today.”

Jon willed his cheeks not to burn, nodding at the older knight’s words. His temper might be the death of him, Jon had always known this. Once, when he was still a boy training under the watchful eye of Strong Sam Stone, the master-at-arms of Runestone, Jon had nearly run his own cousin Waymar through with a blunted blade when Waymar had jokingly referred to Jon as “The Bronze Bastard.” The boys had laughed about it after, but it had still taken forty stitches to close Waymar’s wound, and without the dedication of Maester Helliweg, Jon might have lost a cousin that day.

Jon could still remember the fear he had felt when he had been called to his uncle’s solar. He had been convinced that his uncle had meant to send him away. His mother had been there waiting for him, and when she had seen Jon, Ryella Royce had wept and pulled Jon into her arms, as if Jon had been the one who had been hurt, instead of Waymar. His uncle had been angry, but more disappointed in Jon than anything else. “Just like your father,” Uncle Yohn had said, shaking his head, his face lined in sorrow. Jon learned that day that his uncle loved him too well to ever send him away, but that love did not extend to tolerating Jon’s temper. The boy had spent the next seven moons assisting Septon Lucos in the sept every day after lessons, and by the end of it, Jon had memorized _The Seven-Pointed Star_ , and felt well and truly chastened. But his temper always returned in times of great stress and excitement, as sure as winter.

“Come,” his uncle’s voice called out, and Jon and Ser Symond turned to see the mules ready for departure, and Bronze Yohn Royce beckoning them. “We ride.”

Jon climbed atop a fresh mule. This one was white, and seemed rather bossy, for it led the way immediately following behind the bastard girl, Mya Stone. Jon had been rather curious to meet her, as his good-cousin Mychel Redfort had spoken of the girl often when they were both squires. Mychel had been squire to Lyn Corbray—a rather detestable knight whose looks had always made Jon uncomfortable—but Ninestars had much business and trade with Heart’s Home, so Jon and Mychel had been thrown into each other’s company quite often. Jon liked Mychel well enough, but there was no love lost between him and Jon’s cousin Ysilla, who was now Mychel’s wife. For that alone, Jon thought less of Mychel than perhaps the young man deserved.

Lyn Corbray was with them today. Turning in his seat, Jon looked back and saw all the lords Declarant, along with Lord Nestor Royce and Ser Lyn. Lady Anya Waynwood looked as dignified as always, even atop a mule. Fat Lord Belmore was huffing and puffing, though seated, and Jon had deep sympathy for the poor animal that bore him. Young Lord Hunter was swaying slightly in his saddle, and Jon was not surprised to see him sip from a flask he pulled from his pocket. Lord Redfort looked as well as ever he did. He was a small man, but neat and hard in appearance and personality. Jon, as well as his Uncle Yohn, respected Lord Redfort, but loved him little. Jon’s cousin, Lord Nestor, was perhaps not the wisest man, but still able and just, and worthy of respect. Truly, the only one of their party that Jon disliked was Ser Lyn.

The feeling was returned in full, Jon knew. The Knight had protested Jon’s addition to their party. “What are the boy’s claims to lordship or lands that he thinks to attend this parley?” Lyn had asked, keeping the disgust written plainly across his face as he had looked at Jon in the Gates of the Moon.

“You have no lordship or lands,” Bronze Yohn had said sharply, “and yet, you wish to attend.”

“My name is known and sung across the Seven Kingdoms,” Corbray had replied. “It ‘twas I which slew Lewyn Martell on the Trident, and won my spurs beneath the Walls of Gulltown. This boy is just a bastard.”

“A bastard he may be,” Jon’s uncle had said, “but he is the Bastard of Runestone, and the blood of the First Men flows through his veins, as well as the blood of House Corbray, and he has never disgraced it in dishonorable acts once, _ser_.”

“Let Ser Jon attend,” Ser Symond had added evenly, careful to stress Jon’s title. “We are all too near this to see all angles properly. Our loathing for Baelish the False can lead us into some very dangerous waters if we are not careful. Ser Jon _should_ attend, though he will have no voice.”

“I agree,” Lord Redfort had said.

“And I,” Lord Belmore added.

Lady Anya Waynwood had simply smiled. “All ladies need good and true knights to protect them. I will feel better if Ser Jon attends the parley.”

Lord Hunter had simply shrugged, saying, “I care not.”

“Well, then we should send up a note to Lord Baelish that we are one more,” Lyn Corbray had said. “You told him of my coming, we should tell him of Stone’s.”

“Nine guests shall make no more difference than eight, and this one is mine own blood,” his uncle had said. “Keep your peace, ser, I shall hear no more.”

And so it was that Jon had been allowed to attend, though Ser Lyn did not seem to be in a forgetting mood. He had been watching Jon with barely concealed anger, fingering at the hilt of his Valyrian steel sword, Lady Forlorn.

By the time the party reached Sky, it was late in the day. The waycastle was no more than a wall, carved in the shape of a crescent moon. Ice was laid all across their path, and snow was wrapped around the rocks near them. Mya Stone led them inside the mountain itself where the stables and barracks were located. From there, Lady Waynwood, Lord Belmore, and Lord Redfort were all sent up by way of the turnip basket, while Ser Lyn, Lord Nestor, Lord Hunter, Ser Symond, his Uncle Yohn, and Jon all made the climb by way of the stone ladder.

Lord Nestor and Bronze Yohn had stayed Jon at the bottom, allowing the other Lords and Ser Symond to go up first. “Remember the plan,” Yohn said to his nephew. “Keep your temper, no matter what slights we are dealt.”

“This is not our last hope. Baelish gave me the Gates of the Moon,” Lord Nestor added as he shook his head. “And the man thinks _I’m_ the fool. The inhabitants of the Eyrie _have_ to come down once winter sets in, else they will freeze and starve. If we do not succeed today, we shall have our chance soon enough, once winter comes. Then Lord Robert will be in our hands, and Baelish will be able to do nothing to stop it. Remember Jon, I must play the fool and pretend to be on Littlefinger’s side.”

“I’ll remember,” Jon told his cousin.

“Entertain the girl, his bastard,” Uncle Yohn reminded Jon. “She might be careless when confronted with a handsome knight playing court to her.”

Jon stiffened. He had been told to distract the daughter, not to ruin her. “Baelish’s daughter she may be, but I’ll not dishonor her, nuncle. I am not my father.”

The two of them hardly ever spoke of it, but it was there between them as always. Jon had never known the name of his father until the day the raven came telling of his cousin Robar’s death. Ser Symond and he had been visiting at Runestone, discussing the ongoing war. In short order, the meeting had turned into a wake, and they all shortly fell into their cups. Jon couldn’t properly remember what it was he had said, but some off color remark had caused his uncle to look at him with surprisingly sober eyes. “Gods,” he said, “sometimes I think you are like to Brandon reborn.”

The whole of it had come tumbling out after that.

“Brandon Stark. He often came to the Vale to visit his brother. We Royces are kin to the Starks, did you know that? Many families of the Vale have married into that bloodline, and Brandon always loved it here. He was betrothed to Catelyn Tully when he met your mother, but he loved Ryella all the same. Once he discovered you grew in your mother’s belly, he left the Vale for Riverrun. He swore he meant to break the betrothal, so my young brother Kyle went with him to help explain the situation, as did Elbert Arryn, Jon Arryn’s heir. Along the way, news was heard of his sister’s abduction by Rhaegar Targaryen, so Brandon went to King’s Landing instead.” His uncle had sighed, looking older than his years. “Brandon, Kyle, and Elbert all died, along with Jeffory Mallister. Robert’s Rebellion began, and you were born a bastard.”

Jon forcibly shook himself from the past. He could not afford to dwell on ghosts at present. His uncle, Bronze Yohn, was smiling at him, and clasped Jon on the shoulder. “You’re a good lad, Jon. Just keep her busy, and see if she is willing to talk. That will be enough.”

He nodded to his uncle and cousin. Jon was ready.

His uncle went first, and Lord Nestor next. Jon came last, pulling up the rear of their party. The two older men entered the Crescent Chamber, with Jon coming just behind them.

“Lord Royce,” a sweet, timid voice asked, “will you have a cup of wine, to take the chill off?”

When his uncle spoke, he sounded confused. “Do I know you, girl?”

Their cousin, Lord Nestor, answered gruffly. “Alayne is the Lord Protector’s natural daughter.”

“Littlefinger’s little finger has been busy,” Lyn Corbray put in, causing Belmore to laugh.

Jon took the opportunity to step to the side of Lord Nestor, allowing him to get a glimpse of Alayne Stone. He immediately sucked in an inaudible breath. She was perhaps the most beautiful maid that Jon had ever seen. Her hair was a burnt brown, which looked oddly wrong on her, and yet it did nothing to take away from the beauty of her face. Had the Father Above come down and announced Alayne Stone to be the Maiden made flesh, Jon would not have been the least bit surprised.

“How old are you, child?” asked Lady Waynwood.

Alayne was facing her, and she said, “Fourteen, my lady. And I am no child, but a maiden flowered.”

“But not _de_ flowered, one can hope,” Lord Hunter put in.

“Yet,” Lyn Corbray said, “but she is ripe for the plucking soon, I’d say.”

Alayne’s cheeks turned bright red, and Jon had the odd urge to defend her from the likes of Ser Lyn, but he remembered his uncle’s words and said nothing.

“Is this what passes for courtesy at Heart’s Home?” Lady Waynwood asked, confirming Jon’s admiration for the great lady. “The girl is young and gently bred, and has suffered enough horrors. Mind your tongue, ser.”

“My tongue is my concern,” Ser Lyn answered her. “Your ladyship should take care to mind her own. I have never taken kindly to chastisement, as any number of dead men could tell you.”

Jon’s fingers twitched with the urge to draw his sword.

Lady Waynwood send Corbray a withering glance. “Best take us to your father, Alayne. The sooner we are done with this, the better.”

“The Lord Protector awaits you in the solar,” Alayne said, turning to address them all. “If my lords would…”

She trailed off the moment she set her eyes on Jon. At first, Jon thought that Alayne was simply surprised at the sight of another guest, but then he watched in horror as all the blood seemed to drain from Alayne’s face. Her eyes were fixed on Jon’s face, looking him over as if she could never look enough, as if she was not certain he was quite real. Lord Nestor and his uncle exchanged and confused glance. Lady Waynwood looked concerned, stepping forward towards Alayne, but before she could reach the girl, Alayne took a step to Jon.

“Father?”

The single word was all Alayne Stone managed to get out before bursting into tears.

 

 

_iv. Jaehaerys Targaryen, Prince of the North_

Princess Consort Lyanna Stark was looking at her husband with pitiless eyes. She stood in the middle of the King’s solar, tall and proud.

King Rhaegar Targaryen gaped at her. “You wish to leave me?”

Jaehaerys watched his mother stare down his father with unhidden curiosity. For all of the young prince’s life, his mother had been a rather cold and unemotional woman, never taking delight in nor caring about anything. The courtiers called her the Ghost of the Red Keep. Lord Rosby had once been heard to remark that he had never heard Princess Lyanna speak so much as a single word.

The young prince knew his mother could speak, but she never seemed to have much enthusiasm for anything. Her response to Jaehaerys telling her of his lessons was the same to her response about an inquiry regarding the weather. She was temperate with his father, and emotionless with Queen Elia. Lyanna spent most of her days in her chambers embroidering.

Once, Jaehaerys had heard his father shouting at his mother. “You don’t even like embroidery or weaving! You once said they were as dull as the women who do them.”

“I do many things I do not like, your grace, tolerating them just the same,” the Princess had replied evenly.

He would have thought that his mother felt nothing at all were it not the fact that she had been stealing into his chambers every night for as long as Jaehaerys could remember. In the light of the moon, Lyanna Stark had whispered to her son of the wolfswood and the hot springs at Winterfell. From a shadowed room in the Red Keep, mother and son had traveled to the farthest reaches of the Land of Always Winter, battling with wildlings and giants. Jaehaerys knew the name of every castle on the Wall, and every gruesome story that each one had to tell. He had spent every night of his life falling asleep to the sound of his mother’s voice.

In his dreams, he ran with wolves.

“No,” Jaehaerys’s father was saying, shaking his head in denial. “No, I forbid it. You cannot leave King’s Landing, I need you here.”

“So you say, your grace,” Lyanna replied, not backing down, “but how is my son to one day be your Warden of the North if he knows nothing of the land or its people? I am a Stark of Winterfell, and through me, the men of the North will learn to love him.”

Jaehaerys was curious as to what his father would say. Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North was never a title to which the young prince had aspired. His cousin Robb, son of his uncle Eddard (who had died a traitor’s death), had been the boy lord for the past sixteen years. After all the rebels had been defeated on the Trident when Lord Connington had arrived with sellswords from Essos, violating his exile and saving the day, Princess Lyanna had pleaded with her husband for the life of her brother’s newly born son. The Prince Regent had wanted to attaint the boy, the way he had the youngest Baratheon brother. Jaehaerys’s mother’s intervention had saved Lord Robb’s life, and his cousin had spent his life in Winterfell being raised by Benjen Stark and Lady Catelyn Stark.

According to the letter his mother had received a week ago, Benjen Stark had ridden to the Wall to take the Black once Robb had turned sixteen. Robb, though, had not enjoyed his newfound independence for long. He had fallen from his horse, snapping his neck and leaving Winterfell without a lord. Lady Catelyn wished to return to Riverrun where her brother was lord, and Jaehaerys’s mother was determined to ride north and claim her birthright.

“Lya?” Rhaegar said, his purple eyes pleading. “You are Lady of Winterfell, no man will dispute this, but please…please, stay here. We can send a castellan to go North, or I can send men to the Wall so your brother Benjen might be freed from his vows.”

“My brother is no oathbreaker,” Lyanna said coldly. “And there must always be a Stark in Winterfell. Truly, your grace, you must see how this benefits you as well. My son and I are no use to you here. You have your heir already, and there are too many people who look at my son and fear him to be Daemon Blackfyre come again. In the North, he will have his own destiny and purpose. Jaehaerys will learn what it means to be a Stark, and the largest of the Seven Kingdoms will be at peace.”

“Jaehaerys may go then. Daenerys can join him later, once she is sixteen and it is time for them to wed,” the King said, nodding. His handsome face smoothed itself of lines then, and he smiled at Lyanna. “You can stay, and our son will go. You can abdicate in his favor.”

“I will not.”

The words were like a whip crack in the room. Jaehaerys watched with horrified fascination as his father’s face paled, and his mother’s face grew red. It was as if she was stealing all the blood from him, and the sight of it made her radiant. It made her look like Queen.

“Seventeen years ago I let your honeyed words blind me to the duty and fealty I owed to my house,” Lyanna said venomously. “No more. My nephew is now dead, and with him he took the last piece of my brother Ned from this world. You swore you loved me once, and then you presented me with my brother’s head. I gave you my love and trust, and you repaid me with the corpses of my family. You have taken my father. You have taken my brothers. And you, Rhaegar Targaryen, will take no further part of me.”

Her chest was heaving, but her eyes were bright. Jaehaerys thought that they sparkled with the light of the moon.

“Jaehaerys and I are going North, to Winterfell, and we will not be returning,” Lyanna said. “Shall it be by your leave, _husband_ , or do you mean to hold us here like the prisoners we have always been?”

Rhaegar Targaryen sat back in his chair, defeated. His face was stricken. “Go, then.”

They went.

Two moons later, as the Princess and the Prince rode through Winter Town, Lyanna Stark spurred her horse forward ahead of the caravan, laughing with delight.

 

 

_v. Joanna Snow, bastard of Winterfell_

The letters blurred before her eyes. Achmaester Gyldayn’s words were ones she had read again and again, but she always found them gripping despite the dry prose. Septon Chayle had long since stopped trying to send her from the library at Winterfell, though he still seemed to believe that it was unfit for a lady to read manuscripts on war and bloodlettings for pleasure.

They had come to an agreement, Joanna and the septon. Chayle never told Lord Stark that she read some of the darker pieces, and in return she did not tell her father that the septon often fell asleep when he was supposed to be minding her. Joanna yawned, looking up to see the light streaming through the window. Morning, already.

She had not slept well the night before. Of late, her dreams had been torment by shapes of dark beasts and bleeding stars. Maester Luwin wanted her to take dreamwine before going to bed, but the previous night she discovered that it only made the dreams more vivid. She had done just as the little grey man suggested, and it had only been moments after drifting to sleep that she had been in the grips of a nightmare. Joanna had been standing all alone at the mouth of one of the seven hells, or at least that was what she thought it was. When she had awoken, it had been with her heart pounding and a bitter taste on her tongue. The young girl had tried to return to sleep, but it proved elusive. Joanna had given up near dawn, finally abandoning her bed so that she could come to the library.

Looking down at the parchment, Joanna read the sentence she’d left off at. ‘ _Prince Daemon echoed the queen’s misgivings. Giving pardons to rebels and traitors only sowed the seeds for fresh rebellions, he insisted. “The war will end when the heads of the traitors are mounted on spikes above the King’s Gate, and not before.”’_

Joanna Snow read the words again, and then once more. They sent a chill through her heart, and she closed the book firmly. Pushing back from the table, she wrapped her bed robe about her, and departed from the library. She stepped out the door and descended the steps to the ground, chuckling softly to herself when she saw her uncle waiting for her outside the library tower, wearing his house colors and white cloak, looking as though he had been up for hours.

“Good morrow to you, nuncle,” Joanna called out gaily.

“And you,” he replied. His eyes met hers with sadness and warmth. “The dreams again?”

She nodded shortly, and began to walk swiftly across the courtyard to the Great Keep. Her uncle fell into step behind her, as he always seemed to.

“A messenger came from King’s Landing,” he commented. “In the middle of the night.”

“Oh?”

“Jaime Lannister has been dismissed from the Kingsguard,” her uncle said sadly.

“Indeed?” Joanna replied.

Her uncle sounded mournful, as he always did. He was a creature of sadness. There was not a day that went by that her uncle did not blame himself for the deaths of Princess Elia, Princess Rhaenys, Prince Aegon, Queen Rhaella and her unborn babe, Prince Viserys, and King Aerys—him most of all. Father said that Aerys had been mad and it had been fitting and right for him to die, but that the Kingslayer ought not to have been the one who did it. When she had asked her uncle if Aerys should have died, he had replied that he was not fit to judge, only guard, and that he had to keep the King’s secrets even if the man in question was dead.

The master-of-arms and some of the men drifting into the courtyard to train hallo’ed her as she went past, and Joanna inclined her head.

Lady Catelyn was always accusing her of putting on airs, but Joanna knew herself to be descended from ancient lines of kings on both sides of her blood—while the Tullys were little more than nobles ruled by Ironborn before the dragons came—and Joanna could not be less than she was, bastard born or not. Joanna’s uncle, all of her maids, and her septa seemed to hold this opinion as well, for they deferred to her in all things. Joanna might have felt bad about angering Lady Stark, as she always seemed to do, but it was hard to do so when the woman was always criticizing her. Her embroidery was never fine enough, her lessons never perfectly done, and she always claimed she could hear a Dornish drawl in Joanna’s voice, though Joanna had only been born in Dorne and had never been there since, and the only Dornish person she knew was her uncle! There was simply no pleasing her father’s wife, so Joanna had ceased to try. She always tried to please Septa Eglantine, and Septa Mordane when the two women combined their daily lessons as they sometimes did, but to please Lady Stark was a thankless task. Her uncle had said calmly that she ought not to feel bad about it; she was simply a daily reminder that her father had loved her mother’s memory more than Lady Catelyn.

“The messenger only knew but a little,” her uncle was saying, pulling her attention back to him, “though he gave a courier’s packet to Ned, and Lord Stark immediately locked himself in his solar with Maester Luwin.”

 _Strange and stranger_. Joanna looked at her uncle, his once silver-gold hair, now the color of ash, was pulled back into a messy knot and his normally pristine violet surcoat was slightly off-center. His eyes were bright and alert, but there was a troubled quality to his purple eyes. “Nuncle, what is it?”

He shook his head. “You should go dress, child,” he told her, leading her inside the great keep.

Joanna did as she was bid. When she returned to her chambers, Septa Eglantine and two of her maids had already laid out her dress for the day. After being scrubbed thoroughly by her maids in a bath that was too cold despite the boiling water, Joanna was attired in a kirtle dress the color of blood. Her hair was braided and pinned up, and afterwards the perfectly correct maiden in the burnished mirror looked little like the wild creature that had stolen from her bed at the hour of the owl. Joanna’s uncle was waiting for her outside her door once more. Septa Eglantine smiled at him serenely, as she always did.

“Lord Stark has sent for Lady Joanna,” he said, his voice clear as a bell. The Septa nodded, and the pair of them fell into step behind Joanna as she traced her steps towards her father’s side, as she had done so many times growing up.

The two of them had always watched over her. Septa Eglantine had been chosen to care for her by Lord Stark after Joanna’s mother had died. Her septa had lived in King’s Landing once, Joanna knew, at the Red Keep itself. After the sack though, she had wanted to leave, to join a new motherhouse, or find a position in the Westerlands. Joanna’s uncle had known her somehow, and had suggested the septa to Lord Stark when he found himself with a daughter and no one to mother her. A son might have been different, but her father had been at a complete loss as to what to do with a daughter.

Joanna had often thought of that day, and wondered at the funny sight it must have been to see all of them leaving the Red Keep to return to Winterfell after the Rebellion. It had been her father, and all his men, along with former member of the Kingsguard, a septa, a wet nurse, a baby, and six silent sisters accompanying the corpse of her Aunt Lyanna. It must have been passing odd, indeed.

As for Joanna’s uncle, he had left the Kingsguard after she had been born and her mother had died, so that he might watch over her. No man had ever left the White Swords until her uncle did it, and there were those who called him an oathbreaker and a craven—out of his hearing, of course. Her uncle did not mind though; he said he could never serve a king who stepped over the corpses of babes to get to his throne, and the king was known to have said that if Rhaegar Targaryen’s best friend had stayed on the Kingsguard, King Robert was as like to find a sword _in_ his back, as protecting it. Her uncle had never taken off his white cloak, though. When she had once asked him why, he had simply smiled sadly and said, “A white cloak changes a man, starling. A knight of the Kingsguard might not serve a king, but he never stops _being_ Kingsguard.”

Joanna raised a hand, wrapping sharply on her father’s solar door. “Enter,” a voice called from inside. She stepped through over the threshold, taking in her father’s tired form. Lord Stark looked haggard, and his normal reserved mien was completely shattered. “Father,” she asked tentatively, “are you all right?”

“Jo,” he said, his voice hoarse. He stood, coming around the desk, and pulling her immediately into his arms. His breath smelled of dark ale, and his grip was desperate. He was murmuring something low into her neck; it sounded like, “I promise, I promise.” When he finally released her, she saw that there were tear-tracks on his face. “Starling, I need to speak with you on a matter of some urgency. No, Arthur,” her father said, when he noticed that her uncle was backing out of the room. “Stay. You too, Septa. You must hear this too, for it concerns us all.”

Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning and her loving uncle, stepped back into the room and looked towards her father’s desk where the message from King’s Landing was resting. There were several pages to it. Something that looked like an official decree, along with a letter written in a terse hand, and another in a flowing script with a blob of golden wax at the bottom, embossed with a crowned stag. Her uncle’s violet eyes met her father’s grey ones. “Bad?”

“The King has commanded that Joanna marry.”

She barely felt the seat that her father ushered her into. Her mind was abuzz, and she could hardly do more than blink in her confusion. Marry? She was but a maid of twelve, and a bastard besides. Who would wish to marry a girl with no name? Marriage had not been something she had given an enormous amount of thought to, but when she had, Joanna supposed it might be nice to wed someone like Cley Cerwyn. He lived only half a day’s ride from Winterfell, and always smiled at her when he came to visit Robb. She had rarely smiled back, though. Bastard girls had to protect their virtue more strictly than trueborn girls.

“Damn him to the deepest hells,” her uncle swore, but rather than scolding Ser Arthur for it, Joanna noticed that her Septa was nodding in agreement. Arthur Dayne was truly a sight to behold when he was wroth. His eyes looked like two bright, burning purple stars, and his hand automatically reached up for the great sword he wore slung across his back. “Does he mean to jab at me this way? Does the Kinslayer King think that if Joanna is forced to marry some toady of his choosing I will charge into King’s Landing, sword unsheathed and ready to do battle?”

Joanna sucked in a breath. It was treason to call Robert Baratheon a kinslayer, and even her uncle usually trod more carefully. Joanna’s father, though, either did not notice Arthur’s word choice, or did not care. “To be honest, the jab at you is only tertiary to his true aim,” her father said, using his ‘Lord Stark’ voice. “He thinks to humiliate Tywin Lannister, please me, and jab at you all with one smooth stroke.”

Her uncle gasped at that, though Joanna did not understand. “No,” Arthur said, blood draining from his face until it matched the pale color of his cloak. “She is a child and he killed…”

“I know,” her father said grimly.

“What is that fool thinking?”

“He thinks to keep Lord Tywin contained,” Father said. “The Warden of the West has been bothering Robert about releasing Jaime Lannister from his oath ever since you opened the door, Arthur. It was never going to stop until the Old Lion had what he wanted. According to the letter, Robert gave Lord Tywin two options: have Ser Jaime marry Joanna, a known bastard, and regain his heir, or let him remain in the Kingsguard and have the Westerlands and Casterly Rock pass to his dwarf son.”

 _The Kingslayer_. King Robert meant for her to marry the _Kingslayer_!

Joanna’s head was spinning, and her palms were damp with sweat. _Marry such a man. I cannot; please Father, do not make me_. She had been hearing stories of Jaime Lannister and Lord Tywin all her life. When she and Robb were little, they used to sneak back to the balcony overlooking the Great Hall when they were supposed to be in bed. When Ser Ethan Glover, Lord Dustin, and Ser Mark Ryswell visited, they often would sit up late into the night, drinking with her father, her uncle, and Ser Martyn Cassel. Their stories were filled with the darkness of the Rebellion, and they had never flinched on the details about the events they had seen. Joanna’s dreams had been filled with the horror of child corpses, wrapped in red cloaks and laid at the foot of a large iron throne. She was not supposed to know about such things, and now she wished she didn’t. How was she to marry such a man, one who wore that same Lannister crimson?

Ser Arthur plucked the long document with a golden seal off of the desk. “Tywin chose the path that benefits him most, of course.”

“There is more,” her father said. He handed a decree to Ser Arthur.“He decreed that Jaime Lannister is to become Lord of Dragonstone, on the occasion of his marriage to Joanna, once she reaches sixteen years of age.”

Arthur looked up in shock. “Does he mean to kill her then?”

Joanna shuddered. _Dragonstone_. Just the name sent chills down her spine. At the end of the war, it had been the sight of the Dragon Massacre, as the smallfolk called it. The newly installed King Robert had sent his brother Stannis and all of his forces to take Dragonstone and all the Targaryens remaining there. The Baratheon forces had sacked the fishing village, putting men to the sword and raping the women, before moving onto the castle proper. It had taken them two moons, but at the end of it Lord Stannis led the way into the fortress. He had defeated Ser Oswell Whent in single combat, and Tygett Lannister had killed Lord Gerold Hightower. The rest of the forces had swarmed the keep, until at the end, Prince Viserys was dead by way of a dagger to the eye, and the pregnant Queen Rhaella had been raped and her throat slit. No one had taken credit for the murder of the child and his mother, but it was whispered that the men who did it had been raised to the Kingsguard.

After the sack, and the end of the line of dragon kings, Dragonstone had been awarded to King Robert’s brother Stannis, as his youngest brother Renly was named the Lord of Storm’s End. Lord Stannis, along with an entire household and a thousand men, had gone to take possession of the castle, only for there to be an outbreak of greyscale that had killed nearly all of the men, along with Lord Stannis. Next King Robert had named his son Joffery as Prince of Dragonstone, and had sent a steward and a contingent of men to hold it. There had been a storm so fierce that it broke their ships on the rocks before they ever took possession. Then Tygett Lannister had then been granted the island fastness, only for himself, his wife, and all his men to die when a fire had started in the great hall while they were feasting, trapping everyone inside where they burned to death. Several minor lords had followed, only to meet grim ends. Eventually, Dragonstone had reverted to the Iron Throne once more, and Robert had forgone awarding it to anyone, simply sending a garrison to hold it. They had done so for the past two years, but still there were strange deaths and mysterious disappearances. The smallfolk said the island was cursed, while the Faith claimed it was the dark magic of the Targaryens and their Valyrian gods trying to revenge themselves on those who had done them wrong. The opinions differed, but one thing was certain: to hold Dragonstone meant death.

“I doubt he means to kill Jo, from what little Jon Arryn has said of it over the years, Robert does not believe in the curse, though he knows Lord Tywin does,” her father said. “The King means for Tywin to choke on his own greed. After the Greyjoy Rebellion, Robert has had little to concern himself with but for the politics of the realm. He has no battles to fight anymore, and he knows it. There is little joy in the world anymore but for that he receives by tormenting his courtiers.”

The scorn was thick in her father’s voice. He had once been friends with the king, Joanna knew. They had quarreled over the corpses of Rhaenys, Elia, and Aegon, when her father had gone off to find his sister. The breach might have been mended when Lord Eddard returned to the Red Keep, with their shared grief over Aunt Lyanna’s death, but then her father had heard what Robert had ordered on Dragonstone. When the reports came in, and all was said and done, her father had washed his hands of Robert Baratheon for good and all. He bent his knee, of course, as her uncle Arthur did, but both men had nothing but contempt and disgust for Robert the Kinslayer from that day forward.

Still, the king had made several overtures to her father over the years, trying to mend the breach between them. It seemed this was simply the latest one.

“Must I marry Ser Jaime and go to Dragonstone?” Joanna asked, finally finding her voice. “I do not wish to; please, Father.”

“Jo…” her father said, his voice was hoarse. “You needn’t go south until you’re sixteen.”

“I shall go with you, of course,” Arthur said. “Perhaps we’ll shall be very lucky and the Kingslayer will trip and fall on my sword.”

Joanna gave a watery laugh.

“I will with you too,” Eglantine said. “You shall have my protection, always.”

She nodded her thanks.

Joanna’s father got on his knees before her, kissing her on both cheeks. “I will find a way out of this,” Lord Eddard promised. “I swear it.”

For the first time in Joanna’s life, her father’s words brought her no comfort.

 

_and one, Jon Stark_

Their mother found them in the kitchens.

It had been Jon’s idea to see if they could get the direwolves started on milk from saucers, and so far, the experiment had been a roaring success. Jon’s little grey pup did seem to keep sticking his paw in his saucer, but it simply made them all laugh. Their spirits were high and happy. Sansa, Arya, and Rickon had all reacted differently to the pups. Sansa had been charmed by them, Arya had quickly fallen in love, and little Rickon had simply been afraid, climbing into Jon’s lap and sucking his thumb.

“I’m going to name mine Lady,” Sansa declared, patting her little wolf atop its head.

“Lady?” Arya repeated. “It’s a _direwolf_ , stupid. You can’t name it that.”

“I can and I will,” Sansa said. “What about you, Jon?” His eleven year old sister turned her shining eyes up to him in curiosity. Jon loved each of his sisters, but he had a special bond with Sansa. Ever since the time she was small, she had toddled after him, always wanting to be near the brother that she loved so.

Jon’s twin brother Robb had once laughed about it. “It’s because you look like Father,” Robb had said. “She loves you for that, while you love her just as intensely because she looks like Mother, admit it.”

Jon had done nothing of the sort, but it was true that Jon had always loved Sansa best. And, if it happened to be because she looked like their lady mother, well, Jon certainly wasn’t about to admit it. Theon Greyjoy already said he was tied to their mother’s apron strings.

“I think I will name mine Winter,” Jon said. His little direwolf pup had both feet in the saucer now. “I certainly can’t name him Clever or Graceful.”

“Mine shall be Grey Wind,” Robb announced. “What about you, Rickon?”

“Shaggy!” the three year old announced from his perch in Jon’s lap.

Bran scoffed. “You can’t call him that!”

“Can so!” Rickon replied. “He’s Shaggydog, so there.”

“Naming them already?”

All the Stark children turned and saw their mother at the entrance of the kitchen.

Rickon jumped up at once, running to his mother at a full tilt. “Look, Mother! Wolves.”

“I see, sweetling,” Catelyn Stark said, smoothing back his hair and kissing him on his crown. “And do you like them?”

Rickon shook his head, tucking his face into her skirts.

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s scared of them,” Jon said, standing and crossing to his mother’s side. Jon gave her a kiss on the cheek. “But he’ll soon be brave and strong, right baby brother?”

Rickon nodded. “Like Father.”

Catelyn smiled. “Yes, just like. Rickon, sweetling, I need to talk to your brother. Go back with the pups.” The little boy trotted off, and once he had, Jon’s mother said, “Jon, walk with me.”

The pair of them exited the kitchen, but Lady Catelyn did not speak until they had left the Keep and were heading to the godswood. “There has been a raven from King’s Landing,” she told her son.

“Oh?”

“Lord Jon Arryn, your namesake, is dead.”

Jon sucked in a breath. “Father will be devastated.”

“Yes,” Catelyn agreed. “He will. What’s more, the King is riding to Winterfell to seek your father out.”

Stopping in the middle of the yard, Jon felt as though an iron fist had wrapped its way around his heart. “There is only one reason that the King would do such a thing.”

As he spoke, flurries began to fall from the sky, a summer snow settling down upon the castle. Jon smiled internally. He loved the snow, just as much as he loved Winterfell, the North, and its people. He had been born for this, raised for command and rule from the time he was a babe. It had been a mere chance that Jon had been born before Robb, and yet in this perhaps the gods knew their business best. Of all his father’s sons, Jon alone had the Stark look. His mother had once said that he looked just like his uncle Brandon had done. Jon always loved her best for that.

“You know what your father will say,” Catelyn said, drawing Jon’s attention back to her. “There is only one answer he would give.”

“Father will want to go south, to serve, as is his duty.” Jon frowned. “Perhaps he ought not to go. That direwolf, it had the tines of a stag through its throat. That cannot be a good omen, nor one that should be treated lightly.”

“You know your father will not hear that from us,” his mother said, her lips quirking upwards. “He follows the old gods and puts no faith in signs.”

Jon grinned at his mother. “I follow the old gods, as well as the new, and it is clear to me.” He felt peace in the godswood, but he had always loved his mother’s sept too. He saw her hand in all things, and to sing the songs of the Seven alongside her had always brought him clarity of thought.

Catelyn sighed wistfully at Jon. “When did you get so grown up? I remember when you were naught but a babe at my breast, and now here you are…a man grown, and soon to be lord in your father’s place.”

Frowning, Jon sighed. “I do not think I am ready, Mother.”

“I will help you, as will Robb. You know your twin will not let you fail, not at this.”

Jon frowned again. “He has been talking lately of spurning the holdfast that Father wants him to hold, of going north to the Wall and becoming a man of the Night’s Watch.”

Catelyn chuckled. “Robb might talk, sweet one, but I do not think your twin could ever bear to be parted from you by such a distance. He will be here, of that I am sure, and he will help you rule.”

“Perhaps Father will say no,” Jon mused, looking towards the entrance to the godswood with some hesitance. “He might yet stay here.”

“He will do his duty,” Catelyn replied, “as he always has and always will. You must also do yours.”

Standing straight, Jon Stark looked at his mother with calm eyes. “I will. Winterfell will need a strong lord, and I will do my best to fill Father’s place.”

Catelyn smiled as the snowflakes drifted down from the sky, melting in her hair. “I know you will. You are a Stark of Winterfell.”

Jon nodded grimly. “And winter is coming.”

 

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These little stories are meant to be snapshots from an Alternate!Jon's life. As such, there is much between the lines that I didn't get to flesh out. For the most part, I like alternate canon stories that begin from one point of divergence.
> 
> 1\. Jon Targaryen - When Ned gets to the Tower of Joy, rather than fighting the Kingsguard, they all come to a solution that works for them. The three knights, along with baby Jon, take the black and are therefore no threat to Robert. King Bob probably was furious with Ned about it, but it was most likely done even before Robert knew about it. Plus, there had to be at least one world where Jon was born with silver hair and purple eyes.
> 
> 2\. Daemon Waters - Lyanna dies during childbirth rather than of puerperal fever. As such, the Kingsguard takes Jon/Daemon to Dragonstone. The Kingsguard dies during the seige, and Willem Darry gets Viserys, Dany, and Daemon to Braavos. Now, Daemon's legitimacy is up to the reader. Was Daemon a bastard? Did Viserys lie, or did Willem Darry never tell him that Daemon was the true king? At any rate, Daemon grows up a Dragon and you just know that if Arianne is his wife, that another Dance of the Dragons is around the corner.
> 
> 3\. Jon Stone - Brandon gets Ryella Royce pregnant. Jon really is Brandon's bastard, and is raised in the Vale. Everything still happens the same way, until midway through AFFC, except that Ryella never has to marry a Frey. Yay! I totally wrote more for this snippet than I included, which is basically the downfall of Petyr Baelish and the reclamation of Sansa Stark. It ended up too long, and too involved, but there were hits of Jon/Sansa by the end. Fun times.
> 
> 4\. Jaehaerys Targaryen - At the Battle of the Trident, Jon Con returns from his exile and brings with him a bunch of sellswords. The rebels lose, and Ned, Robert, Stannis, Jon Arryn, and Hoster Tully all get Traitor's deaths. Rhaegar takes over as Regent for his father until Aerys's death. Meanwhile, he has earned the hatred and enmity of his wife and never seems to understand why. I'm doubtful of how supportive the North would be of Lyanna's rule, so perhaps it is best that this snippet ended where it did.
> 
> 5\. Joanna Snow - Jon is born a girl, the Visenya of Rhaegar's prophecy. The Kingsguard, save Arthur, leave once she is born to protect their King Viserys. Going off the quote in the novel "the Kingsguard do not flee," they end up getting slaughtered with the remains of the Targaryen family. Viserys and Rhaella die, and Dany is never born. Joanna is the sole remaining Targ. Arthur refuses to serve on Robert's kingsguard, and goes North with Ned instead. Everybody makes the incorrect assumption that Arthur simply wants to be an uncle to his beloved sister's daughter. Probably an eventually good marriage for Joanna and Jaime. I can totally see this one as ending up rather happy. The twincest would probs never be discovered, and being married to Arthur Dayne's supposed niece would probably be the kick in the pants Jaime needs. I imagine that Joanna would find dragon eggs on Dragonstone, eventually hatching dragons and becoming Queen, with Jaime as her Hand and Arthur as her lord commander.
> 
> 6\. Jon Stark - Jon is born the older twin to Robb, his Father's heir, and Catelyn's beloved son. Sob! This one was really hard to write because it was the world that Jon wanted to live in, and you just know that he would meet as bad an end as Robb did in the original novels. Too much honor. Maybe he wouldn't break his promise to Walder Frey, but he probs would have died anyway. Tywin Lannister does not play fair. Sad times.


	2. Jon Stone, The Extended Edition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the extended version of Jon Stone, Knight of the Vale.

Ser Jon Stone, Knight of the Vale

It was a long journey up from the ground, taking almost the full day. The wind had battered at them all the way to the waycastle Stone, lending a doomed feeling to their journey. It was as if all the Arryns who had ruled and died before Lord Jon were howling in their ears, screaming of the futility of their mission. Little Lord Robert had been the Lord of the Eyrie and the Warden of the East for a full two years, and yet no one was at all pleased by this.

“The boy has little Arryn in him,” his Uncle Yohn had said once when Jon had asked why. “His mother has been a sickness upon his mind, and he already had a sickness of the body to contend with.”

Jon was rather morbidly looking forward to meeting the little eight year old lord. They shared some rather distant blood through House Royce, but Jon had never met the child before. Up until two years before, Robert Arryn and his mother Lysa had lived in King’s Landing. It was only after the death of Lord Jon that they had returned to the Vale. At that time, Jon Stone had still been squiring for Ser Symond Templeton, and had been unable to go to Lady Arryn’s court at the Eyrie. Now, he was a knight in his own right, and finally making his ascent up the Giant’s Lance.

At Snow, his uncle paced restlessly in front of the little timber keep, while Jon took the opportunity to look out at the view below and to the east. The Vale of Arryn was the most beautiful place in all the world, Jon thought. The blue snow-capped mountains sheltered a land of peace and plenty. Slow, lazy rivers crossed the valley floor, and a hundred shinning lakes dotted the landscape as far as the eye could see. The black soil grew their food, and the rich grass fed their horses. A valeman knew where he stood when he was in the land of his birth. It was the home of honor and duty, of soaring words and unbroken vows. Jon had travelled with his Uncle Yohn to King’s Landing and the Riverlands, and he had gone with Ser Symond to tourneys in the Reach, the Stormlands, the Westerlands, and even Dorne. None of it, just none of the rest of the vast, wide world could compare to the Vale of Arryn. Jon had been born in the shelter of this land, and he supposed that this was where the gods intended him to die.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Jon turned, looking over to see Ser Symond standing beside him. The Knight of Ninestars had a beak nose and icy blue eyes that had always reminded Jon of the peregrine falcon, Hunter, that he had been given by his cousin Ser Waymar just before the older boy had left for the Night’s Watch.

Jon had intended to follow his cousin to the Night’s Watch after he had his spurs, but Uncle Yohn had forbidden it once word had come to Runestone of his third son Waymar’s death on a ranging. Bronze Yohn had become even more determined to keep Jon in the Vale once his second son Robar had died at the hands of Ser Loras Tyrell. Jon was now a knight of Runestone, and his uncle did not seem inclined to allow Jon to leave his sight. As a result, Jon had almost welcomed the upheaval in the Vale, and the intrigue of the Lords Declarant, the mustering of their men, and the siege of the Eyrie. Oh, it was not a proper siege, Jon knew, not yet at least, but it was the beginnings of one.

He looked over to Ser Symond, smiling at the man. “The most beautiful sight in all the world.”

Jon was very fond of Ser Symond. The older knight was everything Jon wanted to be, and the six years that he had been Ser Symond’s squire at Ninestars were counted among the best of his life. When Jon had finally won his spurs after a brush with the mountain clans three moons before, wherein he had slain the leader of the Burned Men, Jon had never been prouder than the moment when Ser Symond placed his sword upon Jon’s shoulder, and charged him, in the name of the Seven, to uphold the vows and oaths of knighthood. The bastard boy had knelt, but the knight rose, and he had returned home to Runestone as Ser Jon Stone.

“Look out over that vista, lad,” Ser Symond said, clasping Jon’s shoulder. “That is what we are trying to protect.”

“And we will,” Jon vowed. “I swear it.”

“Keep your temper, listen, and learn,” the Knight of Ninestars cautioned him. “There is much to be discovered today.”

Jon willed his cheeks not to burn, nodding at the older knight’s words. His temper might be the death of him, Jon had always known this. Once, when he was still a boy training under the watchful eye of Strong Sam Stone, the master-at-arms of Runestone, Jon had nearly run his own cousin Waymar through with a blunted blade when Waymar had jokingly referred to Jon as “The Bronze Bastard.” The boys had laughed about it after, but it had still taken forty stitches to close Waymar’s wound, and without the dedication of Maester Helliweg, Jon might have lost a cousin that day.

Jon could still remember the fear he had felt when he had been called to his uncle’s solar. He had been convinced that his uncle had meant to send him away. His mother had been there waiting for him, and when she had seen Jon, Ryella Royce had wept and pulled Jon into her arms, as if Jon had been the one who had been hurt, instead of Waymar. His uncle had been angry, but more disappointed in Jon than anything else. “Just like your father,” Uncle Yohn had said, shaking his head, his face lined in sorrow.

Jon learned that day that his uncle loved him too well to ever send him away, but that love did not extend to tolerating Jon’s temper. The boy had spent the next seven moons assisting Septon Lucos in the sept every day after lessons, and by the end of it, Jon had memorized _The Seven-Pointed Star_ , and felt well and truly chastened. But his temper always returned in times of great stress and excitement, as sure as winter.

“Come,” his uncle’s voice called out, and Jon and Ser Symond turned to see the mules ready for departure, and Bronze Yohn Royce beckoning them. “We ride.”

Jon climbed atop a fresh mule. This one was white, and seemed rather bossy, for it led the way immediately following behind the bastard girl, Mya Stone. Jon had been rather curious to meet her, as his good-cousin Mychel Redfort had spoken of the girl often when they were both squires. Mychel had been squire to Lyn Corbray—a rather detestable knight whose looks had always made Jon uncomfortable—but Ninestars had much business and trade with Heart’s Home, so Jon and Mychel had been thrown into each other’s company quite often. Jon liked Mychel well enough, but there was no love lost between him and Jon’s cousin Ysilla, who was now Mychel’s wife. For that alone, Jon thought less of Mychel that perhaps the young man deserved.

Lyn Corbray was with them today. Turning in his seat, Jon looked back and saw all the lords Declarant, along with Lord Nestor Royce and Ser Lyn. Lady Anya Waynwood looked as dignified as always, even atop a mule. Fat Lord Belmore was huffing and puffing, though seated, and Jon had deep sympathy for the poor animal that bore him. Young Lord Hunter was swaying slightly in his saddle, and Jon was not surprised to see him sip from a flask he pulled from his pocket. Lord Redfort looked as well as ever he did. He was a small man, but neat and hard in appearance and personality. Jon, as well as his Uncle Yohn, respected Lord Redfort, but loved him little. Jon’s cousin, Lord Nestor, was perhaps not the wisest man, but still able and just, and worthy of respect. Truly, the only one of their party that Jon disliked was Ser Lyn.

The feeling was returned in full, Jon knew. The Knight had protested Jon’s addition to their party. “What are the boy’s claims to lordship or lands that he thinks to attend this parley?” Lyn had asked, keeping the disgust written plainly across his face as he had looked at Jon in the Gates of the Moon.

“You have no lordship or lands,” Bronze Yohn had said sharply, “and yet, you wish to attend.”

“My name is known and sung across the Seven Kingdoms,” Corbray had replied. “It ‘twas I which slew Lewyn Martell on the Trident, and won my spurs beneath the Walls of Gulltown. This boy is just a bastard.”

“A bastard he may be,” Jon’s uncle had said, “but he is the Bastard of Runestone, and the blood of the First Men flows through his veins, as well as the blood of House Corbray, and he has never disgraced it in dishonorable acts once, _ser_.”

“Let Ser Jon attend,” Ser Symond had added evenly, careful to stress Jon’s title. “We are all too near this to see all angles properly. Our loathing for Baelish the False can lead us into some very dangerous waters if we are not careful. Ser Jon _should_ attend, though he will have no voice.”

“I agree,” Lord Redfort had said.

“And I,” Lord Belmore added.

Lady Anya Waynwood had simply smiled. “All ladies need good and true knights to protect them. I will feel better if Ser Jon attends the parley.”

Lord Hunter had simply shrugged, saying, “I care not.”

“Well, then we should send up a note to Lord Baelish that we are one more,” Lyn Corbray had said. “You told him of my coming, we should tell him of Stone’s.”

“Nine guests shall make no more difference than eight, and this one is mine own blood,” his uncle had said. “Keep your peace, ser, I shall hear no more.”

And so it was that Jon had been allowed to attend, though Ser Lyn did not seem to be in a forgetting mood. He had been watching Jon with barely concealed anger, fingering at the hilt of his Valyrian steel sword, Lady Forlorn.

By the time the party reached Sky, it was late in the day. The waycastle was no more than a wall, carved in the shape of a crescent moon. Ice was laid all across their path, and snow was wrapped around the rocks near them. Mya Stone led them inside the mountain itself where the stables and barracks were located. From there, Lady Waynwood, Lord Belmore, and Lord Redfort were all sent up by way of the turnip basket, while Ser Lyn, Lord Nestor, Lord Hunter, Ser Symond, his Uncle Yohn, and Jon all made the climb by way of the stone ladder.

Lord Nestor and Bronze Yohn had stayed Jon at the bottom, allowing the other Lords and Ser Symond to go up first. “Remember the plan,” Yohn said to his nephew. “Keep your temper, no matter what slights we are dealt.”

“This is not our last hope. Baelish gave me the Gates of the Moon,” Lord Nestor added as he shook his head. “And the man thinks _I’m_ the fool. The inhabitants of the Eyrie _have_ to come down once winter sets in, else they will freeze and starve. If we do not succeed today, we shall have our chance soon enough, once winter comes. Then Lord Robert will be in our hands, and Baelish will be able to do nothing to stop it. Remember Jon, I must play the fool and pretend to be on Littlefinger’s side.”

“I’ll remember,” Jon told his cousin.

“Entertain the girl, his bastard,” Uncle Yohn reminded Jon. “She might be careless when confronted with a handsome knight playing court to her.”

Jon stiffened. He had been told to distract the daughter, not to ruin her. “Baelish’s daughter she may be, but I’ll not dishonor her, nuncle. I am not my father.”

The two of them hardly ever spoke of it, but it was there between them as always. Jon had never known the name of his father until the day the raven came telling of his cousin Robar’s death. Ser Symond and he had been visiting at Runestone, discussing the ongoing war. In short order, the meeting had turned into a wake, and they all shortly fell into their cups. Jon couldn’t properly remember what it was he had said, but some off color remark had caused his uncle to look at him with surprisingly sober eyes. “Gods,” he said, “sometimes I think you are like to Brandon reborn.”

The whole of it had come tumbling out after that.

“Brandon Stark. He often came to the Vale to visit his brother. We Royces are kin to the Starks, did you know that? Many families of the Vale have married into that bloodline, and Brandon always loved it here. He was betrothed to Catelyn Tully when he met your mother, but he loved Ryella all the same. Once he discovered you grew in your mother’s belly, he left the Vale for Riverrun. He swore he meant to break the betrothal, so my young brother Kyle went with him to help explain the situation, as did Elbert Arryn, Jon Arryn’s heir. Along the way, news was heard of his sister’s abduction by Rhaegar Targaryen, so Brandon went to King’s Landing instead.” His uncle had sighed, looking older than his years. “Brandon, Kyle, and Elbert all died, along with Jeffory Mallister. Robert’s Rebellion began, and you were born a bastard.”

Jon forcibly shook himself from the past. He could not afford to dwell on ghosts at present. His uncle, Bronze Yohn, was smiling at him, and clasped Jon on the shoulder. “You’re a good lad, Jon. Just keep her busy, and see if she is willing to talk. That will be enough.”

He nodded to his uncle and cousin. Jon was ready.

His uncle went first, and Lord Nestor next. Jon came last, pulling up the rear of their party. The two older men entered the Crescent Chamber, with Jon coming just behind them.

“Lord Royce,” a sweet, timid voice asked, “will you have a cup of wine, to take the chill off?”

When his uncle spoke, he sounded confused. “Do I know you, girl?”

Their cousin, Lord Nestor, answered gruffly. “Alayne is the Lord Protector’s natural daughter.”

“Littlefinger’s little finger has been busy,” Lyn Corbray put in, causing Belmore to laugh.

Jon took the opportunity to step to the side of Lord Nestor, allowing him to get a glimpse of Alayne Stone. He immediately sucked in an inaudible breath. She was perhaps the most beautiful maid that Jon had ever seen. Her hair was a burnt brown, which looked oddly wrong on her, and yet it did nothing to take away from the beauty of her face. Had the Father Above come down and announced Alayne Stone to be the Maiden made flesh, Jon would not have been the least bit surprised.

“How old are you, child?” asked Lady Waynwood.

Alayne was facing her, and she said, “Fourteen, my lady. And I am no child, but a maiden flowered.”

“But not _de_ flowered, one can hope,” Lord Hunter put in.

“Yet,” Lyn Corbray said, “but she is ripe for the plucking soon, I’d say.”

Alayne’s cheeks turned bright red, and Jon had the odd urge to defend her from the likes of Ser Lyn, but he remembered his uncle’s words and said nothing.

“Is this what passes for courtesy at Heart’s Home?” Lady Waynwood asked, confirming Jon’s admiration for the great lady. “The girl is young and gently bred, and has suffered enough horrors. Mind your tongue, ser.”

“My tongue is my concern,” Ser Lyn answered her. “Your ladyship should take care to mind her own. I have never taken kindly to chastisement, as any number of dead men could tell you.”

Jon’s fingers twitched with the urge to draw his sword.

Lady Waynwood send Corbray a withering glance. “Best take us to your father, Alayne. The sooner we are done with this, the better.”

“The Lord Protector awaits you in the solar,” Alayne said, turning to address them all. “If my lords would…”

She trailed off the moment she set her eyes on Jon. At first, Jon thought that Alayne was simply surprised at the sight of another guest, but then he watched in horror as all the blood seemed to drain from Alayne’s face. Her eyes were fixed on Jon’s face, looking him over as if she could never look enough, as if she was not certain he was quite real. Lord Nestor and his uncle exchanged and confused glance. Lady Waynwood looked concerned, stepping forward towards Alayne, but before she could reach the girl, Alayne took a step to Jon.

“Father?”

The single word was all Alayne Stone managed to get out before bursting into tears. Then she rushed forward, falling at Jon’s feet and sobbing into his legs as she clutched at him. “Father, oh Father!” she cried. “I saw you die—I saw it! Ser Ilyn took your head off!”

As her tears wetted his leggings, Jon looked up to his uncle in helpless dismay. To his surprise, Uncle Yohn did not look as confused as Jon felt, instead, his eyes were narrowed in concentrated thought.

Alayne was still babbling as she sobbed, and Jon wanted to comfort her, but he knew not what to say. “I didn’t want to, Father! I swear I didn’t. I didn’t want any of it! Not Tyrion, not Joffrey—I am so sorry, Father, so sorry. I didn’t understand; I thought the Queen was my friend and the Prince my love. I just didn’t want to leave. I didn’t mean to betray you, Father, I swear I didn’t!”

She was clutching and grasping at him so tightly that Jon felt as though he was about to lose his balance. “Uncle,” he said. “Help.”

Bronze Yohn crossed the room, pulling the maiden from Jon’s legs. With great, strong arms, he lifted Alayne up and into his embrace. The girl though, was reaching out, grasping for Jon. “Father,” she kept saying. “Please Father, I’ll be good. Don’t go away again.”

Were it not for the honest and sincere heartbreak across her face, Jon would have thought the girl was mad. He understood though, when at last his uncle spoke.

“Sansa?”

The girl stopped sobbing almost immediately, though her tears still continued. Her eyes looked upwards to meet Uncle Yohn’s.

“Lady Sansa Stark?” his uncle said again. “I thought you looked familiar. I met you when you were a girl of ten, do you remember?”

The girl nodded tremulously. “You came to Winterfell on the way to the Wall, so Ser Waymar could join the Night’s Watch. You brought down an eighteen point stag in the wolfswood.”

“That’s right,” Bronze Yohn said soothingly, stroking the girl’s hair. “That’s right. You were such a little lady, even then. Much like your mother.”

“She’s dead,” the girl said, letting out a little whimper. “They killed her at the Twins, and my brother too. They cut off his head, and sewed his direwolf Greywind’s head in its place.”

“The Seven will have their justice,” Uncle Yohn said gently. “Sansa, young one, how did you come to be here?”

“Lord Baelish sent Ser Dontos Hollard to meet with me in King’s Landing,” she replied. “He got me out of the capitol in the tumult of Joffrey’s wedding, and safe onto the boat.” The girl let out a little sob. “Lord Baelish killed him, right in front of me. He was a poor knight and a worse fool, but he did not deserve to die. After we got to the Fingers, Littlefinger said I had to pretend that I was his bastard daughter. He said that they were looking for me, because they thought I killed Joffrey, and that if I didn’t pretend not to be myself, that I would be caught and taken back to King’s Landing, where my head would be cut off like my father’s.”

Lady Waynwood let out a soft gasp of horror.

“Aunt Lysa came to the Fingers to marry Littlefinger. She said she would marry me to Lord Robert, once he was old enough and my sham marriage to Lord Tyrion was at an end,” the young girl continued. “They brought me back to the Eyrie, but…” her voice began trailing off.

“What happened, child?” Bronze Yohn asked. All the while Jon’s uncle was still stroking the girl’s hair, as if she was a startled animal.

“She was…angry at me. Aunt Lysa said that I was coming between her and Lord Baelish. He kissed me, and she saw. I didn’t want it, but Aunt Lysa said that I was throwing myself at him, that she had been in love with him since she was a girl and that I could not come between them. Aunt Lysa said she had made a baby with Lord Baelish then, but that her father wouldn’t let her wed him, and that Lord Jon had needed to take Lysa for the swords. She took me to the Moon Door,” here the girl began sobbing again. “She made as though to push me out, she said it was to teach me a lesson—that I should not take what was hers. Then Littlefinger came in, and tried to get Aunt Lysa to loosen her grip so that I could get away.”

Then, in a halting voice, the girl told the rest. Jon wasn’t even certain she knew what she was saying by that point. Tears in Lord Jon’s wine, a lying letter to Catelyn Stark, and of Baelish pushing her aunt out the Moon Door. “He made me lie to Lord Nestor,” the girl, _Sansa_ , said. “He said I had to be Alayne all the time.”

“Jon,” Ser Symond said quietly. “With me.”

Ser Lyn joined them, as did Lord Nestor and Uncle Yohn. Trembling Sansa had been passed into the waiting arms of Lady Anya, and the five men went up the steep stairs to seek out a rat. Jon had no idea where the lord’s solar was, but he followed after his uncle, with Ser Symond beside him. Jon’s heart was pounding, though he felt a strange sort of calm. It had come over him when he had been listening to Lady Sansa’s story, wrapping around him and giving him strength.

He had not lost his temper, rather it had roared into a pure, white fury that had spread through his veins and given him wrath as a weapon. They passed under the murder holes, and Jon almost waited for the attack, but it never came. When they reached the portcullis, the guards there looked into Ser Symond and the Royces eyes, and wisely stepped aside. The five men stalked down the arcade, heading straight for the solar. Standing outside it was one guard, who watched them with hooded eyes. Almost as one, the five men drew their swords.

Ser Symond rushed at the man, engaging him while the Royces plowed forward into the room where Littlefinger waited for them. Jon followed after them.

The small Lord Protector looked up in surprise, fury twisting his face into something horrible. “What is the meaning of this? Baring steel at a parley?” Then, he looked beyond them to Jon. “Brandon,” he gasped.

“Petyr Baelish, you are hereby under arrest for the murders of Lord Jon Arryn and Lady Lysa Arryn,” Jon’s uncle intoned.

“Look out,” Lord Nestor suddenly yelled, looking at Jon in horror.

As if by some unknown sense, Jon twisted his body to the left, barely escaping the slice of Lady Forlorn, as Lyn Corbray’s Valyrian steel sword slashed through the air. Jon ducked, and then jumped up, meeting Corbray’s sword with his own. They clashed together, the Valyrian sword clearly the superior weapon, but Jon was a man of seventeen, with years of tourneys and mêlées under his belt, while Ser Lyn was a man who had rested on his laurels and reputation for far too long. The fight was brief, but it ended with Jon’s sword through Ser Lyn’s traitorous belly.

Once it was over, Jon noticed that Ser Symond had stepped into the room. He gave Jon a nod of approval before crossing to help the Royces.

As they escorted Baelish from the room, he looked up and met Jon’s eyes dully. “You died, the Mad King executed you. How is it that you have returned to torment me?”

 _First the younger brother, now I am mistaken for the elder_. _At least Baelish saw me for my father’s son._

They escorted Baelish from the hall, leading him down to the Sky cells. For the rest of the night, the Lords Declarant spent their hours weeding through the staff and guards of the Eyrie, determining which ones were loyal to the Vale, and which ones were in Baelish’s employ. In the end, a good number of them were in cells of their own, and by the time that Jon trekked up to the High Hall, sunrise was creeping up over the mountain tops.

When Jon finally sat down to his uncle, he didn’t even pause for food before asking, “What now, uncle?”

Bronze Yohn frowned. “I am not sure. This changes everything, lad. Lady Sansa is the heir to the North, and King Robb’s only living heir. And she carries Royce blood in her too. War might be upon us.”

Rather than the eagerness with which Jon expected he would feel, it was dread that filled him instead. But before Jon had time to come to grips with what he had just learned, Lady Waynwood entered the Hall, accompanied by Lady Sansa. Her hair was no longer brown; instead, it was now a rich copper red. _She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen_. When the young lady saw him, Sansa beamed and immediately crossed the room to his side.

Jon stood at her approach, taking her outstretched hands in his own. Sansa curtsied, smiling at him. “Lady Waynwood says we are cousins,” Sansa said shyly, with a touch of awe, speaking as if this was the most wonderful news in the world. “She said that you are my Uncle Brandon’s son. I am so pleased to meet you—I thought I didn’t have any family left at all.”

Jon’s chest felt warm. “Well, you have me now. As you say, I am your cousin, and I will protect you with my life, my lady.”

“Sansa,” she said, blushing prettily. “You are a Stark, so I know you will protect me, Ser Jon. You look so much like Father, but even more handsome.”

Jon felt his own cheeks beginning to get red. “I am a Stone, cousin, not a Stark, but I will protect you all the same.”

“You _are_ a Stark,” Sansa said confidently, “just one without a direwolf, like me. My father always said that the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. We shall be each other’s pack from now on, won’t we, Jon?”

A gust of wind roared against the windows of the High Hall, but to Jon, it sounded like the howling of a wolf.

“Yes, Sansa, we will.”

  _fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was the extended edition of Jon Stone, Knight of the Vale. Originally, I was going to include this entire story, but it was simply too long. 
> 
> If I ever went back and wrote the story in its entirety, from Jon's conception through the war of Five Kings, I would probably change a lot of this up. Baelish would have probably known about Jon earlier, and Jon probably would have gone to the Tourney of the Hand with Ser Symond. Not sure if he would have met Sansa then, probably not, but he certainly would have met Ned. It's also possible that if I rewrote this story from the beginning, I might have had Robb foster in the Vale at some point too. So Robb might have made Jon his heir during the WOTFK? Maybe, not certain. Also, Cat's view of Jon Stone would be very interesting, I think.


	3. Joanna Snow, The Extended Edition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the extended version of Joanna Snow, Bastard of Winterfell

Joanna Snow, Bastard of Winterfell

The letters blurred before her eyes. Achmaester Gyldayn’s words were ones she had read again and again, but she always found them gripping despite the dry prose. Septon Chayle had long since stopped trying to send her from the library at Winterfell, though he still seemed to believe that it was unfit for a lady to read manuscripts on war and bloodlettings for pleasure.

They had come to an agreement, Joanna and the septon. Chayle never told Lord Stark that she read some of the darker pieces, and in return she did not tell her father that the septon often fell asleep when he was supposed to be minding her. Joanna yawned, looking up to see the light streaming through the window. Morning, already.

She had not slept well the night before. Of late, her dreams had been torment by shapes of dark beasts and bleeding stars. Maester Luwin wanted her to take dreamwine before going to bed, but the previous night she discovered that it only made the dreams more vivid. She had done just as the little grey man suggested, and it had only been moments after drifting to sleep that she had been in the grips of a nightmare. Joanna had been standing all alone at the mouth of one of the seven hells, or at least that was what she thought it was.

_She had been on the side of a mountain, surrounded by total darkness. No stars lit the sky; they had all gone out. Despair had filled her, and hot tears had trickled down her cheeks to freeze on her face. Joanna would die, this she knew. Then, to her left, Joanna had seen a light peeping through the rocks. Moving forward, she had pulled the rocks away from the light, trying to make a space so that she could see where the light came from. Once it was wide enough to move through, Joanna stepped into the crevasse in the rock, where she was at once engulfed in heat. It was the most wonderful thing she had ever felt, for she had never thought to be warm again. Her eyes moved to and fro, but it had been a red inferno everywhere she looked, lava climbing up the sides of the walls and dripping from overhanging stalactites. Joanna had fallen to her knees, awkward and unsure, only then seeing that her thighs were thick with sweat and blood._

When she had awoken, it had been with her heart pounding and a bitter taste on her tongue. The young girl had tried to return to sleep, but it proved elusive. Joanna had given up near dawn, finally abandoning her bed so that she could come to the library.

Looking down at the parchment, Joanna read the sentence she’d left off at. ‘ _Prince Daemon echoed the queen’s misgivings. Giving pardons to rebels and traitors only sowed the seeds for fresh rebellions, he insisted. “The war will end when the heads of the traitors are mounted on spikes above the King’s Gate, and not before.”’_

Joanna Snow read the words again, and then once more. They sent a chill through her heart, and she closed the book firmly. Pushing back from the table, she wrapped her bed robe about her, and departed from the library. She stepped out the door and descended the steps to the ground, chuckling softly to herself when she saw her uncle waiting for her outside the library tower, wearing his house colors and white cloak, looking as though he had been up for hours.

“Good morrow to you, nuncle,” Joanna called out gaily.

“And you,” he replied. His eyes met hers with sadness and warmth. “The dreams again?”

She nodded shortly, and began to walk swiftly across the courtyard to the Great Keep. Her uncle fell into step behind her, as he always seemed to.

“A messenger came from King’s Landing,” he commented. “In the middle of the night.”

“Oh?”

“Jaime Lannister has been dismissed from the Kingsguard,” her uncle said sadly.

“Indeed?” Joanna replied.

Her uncle sounded mournful, as he always did. He was a creature of sadness. There was not a day that went by that her uncle did not blame himself for the deaths of Princess Elia, Princess Rhaenys, Prince Aegon, Queen Rhaella and her unborn babe, Prince Viserys, and King Aerys—him most of all. Father said that Aerys had been mad and it had been fitting and right for him to die, but that the Kingslayer ought not to have been the one who did it. When she had asked her uncle if Aerys should have died, he had replied that he was not fit to judge, only guard, and that he had to keep the King’s secrets even if the man in question was dead.

The master-of-arms and some of the men drifting into the courtyard to train hallo’ed her as she went past, and Joanna inclined her head.

Lady Catelyn was always accusing her of putting on airs, but Joanna knew herself to be descended from ancient lines of kings on both sides of her blood—while the Tullys were little more than nobles ruled by Ironborn before the dragons came—and Joanna could not be less than she was, bastard born or not. Joanna’s uncle, all of her maids, and her septa seemed to hold this opinion as well, for they deferred to her in all things. Joanna might have felt bad about angering Lady Stark, as she always seemed to do, but it was hard to do so when the woman was always criticizing her. Her embroidery was never fine enough, her lessons never perfectly done, and she always claimed she could hear a Dornish drawl in Joanna’s voice, though Joanna had only been born in Dorne and had never been there since, and the only Dornish person she knew was her uncle! There was simply no pleasing her father’s wife, so Joanna had ceased to try. She always tried to please Septa Eglantine, and Septa Mordane when the two women combined their daily lessons as they sometimes did, but to please Lady Stark was a thankless task. Her uncle had said calmly that she ought not to feel bad about it; she was simply a daily reminder that her father had loved her mother’s memory more than Lady Catelyn.

“The messenger only knew but a little,” her uncle was saying, pulling her attention back to him, “though he gave a courier’s packet to Ned, and Lord Stark immediately locked himself in his solar with Maester Luwin.”

 _Strange and stranger_. Joanna looked at her uncle, his once silver-gold hair, now the color of ash, was pulled back into a messy knot and his normally pristine violet surcoat was slightly off-center. His eyes were bright and alert, but there was a troubled quality to his purple eyes. “Nuncle, what is it?”

He shook his head. “You should go dress, child,” he told her, leading her inside the great keep. “I have a feeling Lord Stark will be sending for you soon.”

She was even more puzzled by that—for why would her father be sending for her when he was fussed about some messenger from King’s Landing?—but she did as she was bid. When she returned to her chambers, Septa Eglantine and two of her maids had already laid out her dress for the day. Her septa said nothing when she saw Joanna, simply looking pointedly at her charge’s bed robe and un-brushed hair. Joanna blushed. Her septa was from Lannisport, and when Eglantine gave her certain looks, the Snow maiden felt like nothing so much as a member of the smallfolk.

After being scrubbed thoroughly by her maids in a bath that was too cold despite the boiling water, Joanna was attired in a kirtle dress the color of blood. Her hair was braided and pinned up, and afterwards the perfectly correct maiden in the burnished mirror looked little like the wild creature that had stolen from her bed at the hour of the owl. Joanna’s uncle was waiting for her outside her door once more. Septa Eglantine smiled at him serenely, as she always did.

“Lord Stark has sent for Lady Joanna,” he said, his voice clear as a bell. The Septa nodded, and the pair of them fell into step behind Joanna as she traced her steps towards her father’s side, as she had done so many times growing up.

The two of them had always watched over her. Septa Eglantine had been chosen to care for her by Lord Stark after Joanna’s mother had died. Her septa had lived in King’s Landing once, Joanna knew, at the Red Keep itself. After the sack though, she had wanted to leave, to join a new motherhouse, or find a position in the Westerlands. Joanna’s uncle had known her somehow, and had suggested the septa to Lord Stark when he found himself with a daughter and no one to mother her. A son might have been different, but her father had been at a complete loss as to what to do with a daughter.

Joanna had often thought of that day, and wondered at the funny sight it must have been to see all of them leaving the Red Keep to return to Winterfell after the Rebellion. It had been her father, and all his men, along with former member of the Kingsguard, a septa, a wet nurse, a baby, and six silent sisters accompanying the corpse of her Aunt Lyanna. It must have been passing odd, indeed.

As for Joanna’s uncle, he had left the Kingsguard after she had been born and her mother had died, so that he might watch over her. No man had ever left the White Swords until her uncle did it, and there were those who called him an oathbreaker and a craven—out of his hearing, of course. Her uncle did not mind though; he said he could never serve a king who stepped over the corpses of babes to get to his throne, and the king was known to have said that if Rhaegar Targaryen’s best friend had stayed on the Kingsguard, King Robert was as like to find a sword _in_ his back, as protecting it. Her uncle had never taken off his white cloak, though. When she had once asked him why, he had simply smiled sadly and said, “A white cloak changes a man, starling. A knight of the Kingsguard might not serve a king, but he never stops _being_ Kingsguard.”

Joanna raised a hand, wrapping sharply on her father’s solar door. “Enter,” a voice called from inside. She stepped through over the threshold, taking in her father’s tired form. Lord Stark looked haggard, and his normal reserved mien was completely shattered. “Father,” she asked tentatively, “are you all right?”

“Jo,” he said, his voice hoarse. He stood, coming around the desk, and pulling her immediately into his arms. His breath smelled of dark ale, and his grip was desperate. He was murmuring something low into her neck; it sounded like, “I promise, I promise.” When he finally released her, she saw that there were tear-tracks on his face. “Starling, I need to speak with you on a matter of some urgency. No, Arthur,” her father said, when he noticed that her uncle was backing out of the room. “Stay. You too, Septa. You must hear this too, for it concerns us all.”

Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning and her loving uncle, stepped back into the room and looked towards her father’s desk where the message from King’s Landing was resting. There were several pages to it. Something that looked like an official decree, along with a letter written in a terse hand, and another in a flowing script with a blob of golden wax at the bottom, embossed with a crowned stag. Her uncle’s violet eyes met her father’s grey ones. “Bad?”

“The King has commanded that Joanna marry.”

She barely felt the seat that her father ushered her into. Her mind was abuzz, and she could hardly do more than blink in her confusion. Marry? She was but a maid of twelve, and a bastard besides. Who would wish to marry a girl with no name? Marriage had not been something she had given an enormous amount of thought to, but when she had, Joanna supposed it might be nice to wed someone like Cley Cerwyn. He lived only half a day’s ride from Winterfell, and always smiled at her when he came to visit Robb. She had rarely smiled back, though. Bastard girls had to protect their virtue more strictly than trueborn girls.

“Damn him to the deepest hells,” her uncle swore, but rather than scolding Ser Arthur for it, Joanna noticed that her Septa was nodding in agreement. Arthur Dayne was truly a sight to behold when he was wroth. His eyes looked like two bright, burning purple stars, and his hand automatically reached up for the great sword he wore slung across his back. “Does he mean to jab at me this way? Does the Kinslayer King think that if Joanna is forced to marry some toady of his choosing I will charge into King’s Landing, sword unsheathed and ready to do battle?”

Joanna sucked in a breath. It was treason to call Robert Baratheon a kinslayer, and even her uncle usually trod more carefully. Joanna’s father, though, either did not notice Arthur’s word choice, or did not care. “To be honest, the jab at you is only tertiary to his true aim,” her father said, using his ‘Lord Stark’ voice. “He thinks to humiliate Tywin Lannister, please me, and jab at you all with one smooth stroke.”

Her uncle gasped at that, though Joanna did not understand. “No,” Arthur said, blood draining from his face until it matched the pale color of his cloak. “She is a child and he killed…”

“I know,” her father said grimly.

“What is that fool thinking?”

“He thinks to keep Lord Tywin contained,” Maester Luwin said, causing Joanna to jump as she had not noticed him in the room. He stood by her father’s desk, in the light of the windows. His kind eyes were thoughtful. “The Warden of the West has been bothering the King about releasing Lord Jaime from his oath ever since you opened the door, Ser Arthur. It was never going to stop until Lord Lannister had what he wanted. According to the letter, King Robert gave Lord Tywin two options: have Ser Jaime marry Joanna, a known bastard, and regain his heir, or let him remain in the Kingsguard and have the Westerlands and Casterly Rock pass to his dwarf son. For the Old Lion, it was no choice at all.”

 _The Kingslayer_. King Robert meant for her to marry the _Kingslayer_!

Joanna’s head was spinning, and her palms were damp with sweat. _Marry such a man. I cannot; please Father, do not make me_. She had been hearing stories of Jaime Lannister and Lord Tywin all her life. When she and Robb were little, they used to sneak back to the balcony overlooking the Great Hall when they were supposed to be in bed. When Ser Ethan Glover, Lord Dustin, and Ser Mark Ryswell visited, they often would sit up late into the night, drinking with her father, her uncle, and Ser Martyn Cassel. Their stories were filled with the darkness of the Rebellion, and they had never flinched on the details about the events they had seen. Joanna’s dreams had been filled with the horror of child corpses, wrapped in red cloaks and laid at the foot of a large iron throne. She was not supposed to know about such things, and now she wished she didn’t. How was she to marry such a man, one who wore that same Lannister crimson?

Ser Arthur plucked the long document with a golden seal off of the desk. “Tywin chose the path that benefits him most, of course. Joanna Snow no more.” Her uncle showed her the parchment. “You are Joanna Stark now.”

She took the decree of legitimization in her hands, reading it slowly as if the words were in High Valyrian rather than common Westerosi. She had often dreamt of this day. Though, it had often revolved around a merry feast with her father kissing her on both cheeks in the Great Hall, all his bannermen assembled, while Lady Catelyn watched helpless. He would declare that she had shown herself to be a true Stark, and worthy to bear his name. Sansa would beam at her, Arya and Bran would laugh, saying they had known it all along, Robb would wink, and Rickon would crawl into her lap and call her sissy, as he always did. Nothing would change between them all, but for once, she would be one of them. Not less, not more, simply equal. Joanna blinked back the tears, knowing that vision would never happen now. She was a Stark, but at the cost of giving her maidenhood to a man without honor, who was like to murder her if she displeased him. _And how does one please such a man_?

“There is more,” her father said. He handed another piece of parchment to Ser Arthur. “He decreed that Jaime Lannister is to become Lord of Dragonstone, on the occasion of his marriage to Joanna, once she reaches sixteen years of age.”

Arthur looked at Lord Stark in shock. “Does he mean to kill her then?”

 _Dragonstone_.

Joanna shuddered. Just the name sent chills down her spine. Everyone knew that the castle, and the island itself, was cursed.

At the end of the war, it had been the sight of the Dragon Massacre, as the smallfolk called it. At the end of the Rebellion, when word had come that the remaining Kingsguard, save Joanna’s uncle, were held up on Dragonstone, and had crowned Viserys the true king of the Seven Kingdoms, the newly installed King Robert had sent his brother Stannis, along with Lord Tywin and all of his forces to take Dragonstone and all the Targaryens remaining there. The combined Baratheon and Lannister forces had sacked the fishing village, putting men to the sword and raping the women, before moving onto the castle proper. It had taken them two moons, but at the end of it Lord Stannis led the way into the fortress. He had defeated Ser Oswell Whent in single combat, and Tygett Lannister had killed Lord Gerold Hightower. The rest of the forces had swarmed the keep, until at the end, Prince Viserys was dead by way of a dagger to the eye, and the pregnant Queen Rhaella had been raped and her throat slit. No one had taken credit for the murder of the child and his mother, but it was whispered that the men who did it had been raised to the Kingsguard. Ser Meryn Trant was a true monster, while Ser Boros Blount simply a craven. (After all, it does not take a brave man to kill a little child.)

The castle itself had been looted, and all the retainers put to the sword, but the famed cache of dragon eggs had not been found. Maester Luwin said that was naught more than a tale, and that the Targaryens had lost the last of their eggs during the tragedy of Summerhall.

After the sack, and the end of the line of dragon kings, Dragonstone had been awarded to King Robert’s brother Stannis, as his youngest brother Renly was named the Lord of Storm’s End. Lord Stannis, along with an entire household and a thousand men, had gone to take possession of the castle, only for there to be an outbreak of greyscale that had killed nearly all of the men, along with Lord Stannis. Next King Robert had named his son Joffery as Prince of Dragonstone, and had sent a steward and a contingent of men to hold it. There had been a storm so fierce that it broke their ships on the rocks before they ever took possession. Tygett Lannister had then been granted the island fastness, only for himself, his wife, and all his men to die when a fire had started in the great hall while they were feasting, trapping everyone inside where they burned to death. Next it had been a minor Crownlands house—Joanna couldn’t remember which one—awarded the castle for their services during the Battle of the Bells. They ended up spreading the pale mare throughout the castle, killing all. After that, Ser Ronwyn Tallan, a hero of Ashford, ended up drowning and his men had turned on each other. Then that Bracken knight who had thought to drive the evil spirits out with the Faith of the Seven, and ended up in a snowstorm with the granary going bad, and him and his men resorting to cannibalism until winter was over, and they were all mad or dead. After that, King Robert could not find a man able to hold the castle for more than a moon’s turn or two, and many had died in quick succession.

Eventually, Dragonstone had reverted to the Iron Throne once more, and Robert had forgone awarding it to anyone, simply sending a garrison to hold it. They had done so for the past two years, but still there were strange deaths and mysterious disappearances. The smallfolk said the island was cursed, while the Faith claimed it was the dark magic of the Targaryens and their Valyrian gods trying to revenge themselves on those who had done them wrong. The opinions differed, but one thing was certain: to hold Dragonstone meant death.

“I doubt he means to kill Jo, from what little Jon Arryn has said of it over the years, Robert does not believe in the curse, though he knows Lord Tywin does,” her father said. “The King means for Tywin to choke on his own greed. After the Greyjoy Rebellion, Robert has had little to concern himself with but for the politics of the realm. He has no battles to fight anymore, and he knows it. There is little joy in the world anymore but for that he receives by tormenting his courtiers.”

The scorn was thick in her father’s voice. He had once been friends with the king, Joanna knew. They had quarreled over the corpses of Rhaenys, Elia, and Aegon, when her father had gone off to find his sister. The breach might have been mended when Lord Eddard returned to the Red Keep, with their shared grief over Aunt Lyanna’s death, but then her father had heard what Robert had ordered on Dragonstone. When the reports came in, and all was said and done, her father had washed his hands of Robert Baratheon for good and all. He bent his knee, of course, as her uncle Arthur did, but both men had nothing but contempt and disgust for Robert the Kinslayer from that day forward.

Still, the king had made several overtures to her father over the years, trying to mend the breach between them. It seemed this was simply the latest one.

“Must I marry Ser Jaime and go to Dragonstone?” Joanna asked, finally finding her voice. “I do not wish to; please, Father.”

“Jo…” her father said, his voice was hoarse. “You needn’t go south until you’re sixteen.”

“I shall go with you, of course,” Arthur said. “Perhaps we’ll shall be very lucky and the Kingslayer will trip and fall on my sword.”

Joanna gave a watery laugh.

“I will with you too,” Eglantine said. “You shall have my protection, always.”

She nodded her thanks.

Joanna’s father got on his knees before her, kissing her on both cheeks. “I will find a way out of this,” Lord Eddard promised. “I swear it.”

For the first time in Joanna’s life, her father’s words brought her no comfort.

Sure enough, four years later, Joanna Stark found herself traveling south on the kingsroad to wed Jaime Lannister.

 

  _fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unlike with Jon Stone, I didn't really cut off a huge chunk at the end. Instead, in order to get this story to fit in with the others, I edited it severely for content and dialogue. As a result, some exposition and a plot thread were dropped, as well as poor Maester Luwin. I also cut out Joanna's dream, as well as the mention of dragon eggs... Little pieces of the Dragon Massacre were excised too, along with why Dragonstone was given to one of the Lannisters, and how each lord or knight that held the castle had a progressively worse fate. I dropped Joanna being legitimized in its entirety, but here it is added back in.


End file.
